The lead article on page two of today’s Daily Star said Desmond was ‘proud to have set the record straight’and detailed the proprietor’s reasons for pursuing his legal action against Bower.

Only when you get to the last paragraph does the story reveal that Desmond was not actually defamed.
The piece doesn’t mention the word ‘lost”, nor does it carry any of Bower’s post match analysis about how he was the victim of “a very rich man trying to suppress the truth” and how the jury had done a “great service to British journalism”.

Desmond’s legal action came over claims by Bower in his 2006 biography of the disgraced former Daily Telegraph owner Conrad Black that he interfered in the editorial running of his newspapers.

In his other paper, the Daily Express, the headline on page six says: “I’m happy to put the record straight says Daily Express owner” however the fact that Desmond was “unsuccessful in establishing that he was libelled’does make it into the third paragraph.